2011 8-Player Final: Carsonville-Port Sanilac Wins Inaugural Title
December 16, 2011
MARQUETTE – Carsonville-Port Sanilac sophomore Dan Rickett emerged from his team’s final huddle of this season, pulled close to an assistant coach and said, “This one says MHSAA this time.”
His Tigers also celebrated a championship last season – a perfect season in fact, but unofficial title because the MHSAA has not yet instituted playoffs for the now 3-year-old sport.
This year, the first playoffs were held. And that made Friday’s 59-20 win over Rapid River at the Superior Dome – and the trophy C-PS then received – mean so much more.
The Tigers are the first MHSAA 8-player football champions.
“All the people saying last year was nothing, this will shut them up,” C-PS senior quarterback Hayden Adams said. “It means a lot more because we actually had to make a run in the playoffs. It’s that much harder, and we had to play that much better every game.
“I think we topped it off at the end of the season.”
A total of 1,433 fans – most wearing Rapid River’s purple and yellow – cheered on the teams in the inaugural game. C-PS finished 12-1 overall to move to 21-1 in coach Tim Brabant’s two seasons. The Rockets finished 11-2 in their first season of 8-player.
The sport was added by the MHSAA in 2009 to provide another option for schools with enrollments so small they had difficulty fielding an 11-player squad. Playoffs were added this season after the necessary 20 schools announced they’d be sponsoring 8-player teams.
That was not lost on either team, even for Rapid River in the loss. The Rockets had won one game each of the last two seasons playing 11-player teams.
“We had never played in the postseason at all since I’ve been here,” Rapid River senior running back Jacob Berglund said. “To make it this far, it’s awesome.”
Offense has reigned in the early stages of the MHSAA 8-player game. The Final kept to that standard.
The teams combined for 901 yards. Adams completed 12 of 17 passes for 324 yards and five touchdowns, and ran for 130 more yards and two scores. Two of his scoring passes were to his brother Trevor Adams, also a senior, including a 43-yarder on the second play of the game. Rickett ran for 78 yards and a touchdown on five carries, and also caught six passes for 133 yards and two scores.
The Tigers jumped out to a 19-0 lead and pushed it to 27-6 by the end of the first quarter. But in 8-player football, a 21-point advantage generally is not a safe one.
Rapid River outscored C-PS in the second quarter to get within 39-20 by halftime. After completing just one pass during the first quarter, Rockets sophomore quarterback Jake Pearson threw for 144 yards and two scores during the second.
But then something somewhat unimaginable happened. The Tigers held the Rockets scoreless the rest of the game.
“At halftime we made some adjustments on what we should do when they motioned. We picked it up real fast,” said C-PS senior linebacker Steven Koehler, who finished with a game-high 20 tackles, including 12 solos.
“I think that the fact they had 10 seniors, and the speed. They’re a year older, two years older in some cases,” Rapid River coach Steve Ostrenga listed as reasons his team had difficulties. “You get two more years of development in that respect as far as strength, and their speed was noticeable. I think that was the big key, their speed.”
Half of C-PS’s players were seniors who had served large roles on this and last season’s teams.
“It’s very fun to watch when we have a group of kids who are that athletic, hard working, and very polite. It’s hard for me to send these guys off,” Brabant said. “I get emotional just thinking about it. But … I know they’re going to be very successful in life.”
The Rockets, meanwhile, graduate just seven players, and also had seven freshmen and three sophomores this fall. Said Pearson, “It was a great learning experience. We know what we have to do for next year now.”
“Now all the teams are going to see what we do,” Adams said. “And they’re going to start doing all the things we do.”
Much Different Story, Same Final Result as Lenawee Christian Repeats
By
Travis Nelson
Special for Second Half
November 20, 2021
MARQUETTE — It was a different stadium, but the same end result Saturday as Adrian Lenawee Christian defeated Suttons Bay for the second consecutive season, this time 31-20, to repeat as 8-player Division 1 champion.
But Saturday’s game at Northern Michigan University’s Superior Dome proved a much tougher test for the Cougars, who needed two fourth-quarter touchdowns to finally take down the Norsemen.
Lenawee Christian had won last season’s championship game 47-0 at Legacy Center in Brighton.
“What a tremendous game; my hat’s off to Suttons Bay,” Adrian Lenawee Christian coach Bill Wilharms said. “To make it here three straight years in a row, man what an amazing program coach (Garrick) Opie has.
“To all of the fans, it was so cool in this environment. It was so loud. This is what small-town football is all about. I can’t say enough about the venue and just having the opportunity to be here. I appreciate that a great deal.”
The game couldn’t have started better for the Cougars, as on the second play, Ashur Bryja intercepted a Suttons Bay pass and returned it 22 yards for the opening score. Suttons Bay had multiple scoring chances in the first quarter with drives reaching the Lenawee Christian red zone, but the Norsemen turned the ball over on downs.
The second quarter came with better fortunes for Suttons Bay, with Hugh Periard taking a handoff 90 yards for a score. Shawn Bramer’s two-point conversion run was sniffed out by the Cougars’ defense, and Suttons Bay trailed 7-6 with 6:44 left in the half. Lenawee Christian had a nice drive going inside the Norsemen 10-yard line before a pass was tipped and intercepted at the goal line by August Schaub, and returned it 99 yards for a score. Another Suttons Bay two-point attempt was no good, but the two touchdowns built a 12-7 lead with 4:58 to go in the half.
But Adrian Lenawee Christian didn’t fold because of the momentum changes, and responded with a six play, 65-yard drive capped off with a Bryja 11-yard touchdown run to take the lead back. The Cougars led 14-12 at halftime, and responding to Suttons Bay’s punches went back to being tested throughout the season, Wilharms said.
“I think this year, we’ve been tested a couple times,” Wilharms said. “Colon did it to us at their place, we had to weather some storms there as well, so I think we were tested. BD (Britton Deerfield) on the first play of the game in Week 9 comes out and scores on us. These kids have weathered the challenge on it and they understand, they play together as a team.”
Suttons Bay had another turnover on downs in Lenawee Christian territory in the third quarter, which turned into three points for the Cougars as Brady McKelvey nailed a 28-yard field goal to extend the lead to 17-12 with 2:02 remaining in the period.
Defense continued to carry the second half well into the fourth quarter, when the first touchdown of the half was scored with only 6:21 left in the game. Clay Ayers, who battled injury, ran the ball in for the Cougars to extend the lead to 24-12. Ayers was limited to only seven carries, but he showed well when it mattered most.
Suttons Bay fired back just 1:06 later with a deep pass from quarterback Dylan Barnowski to Periard for a 55-yard touchdown to cut the Cougars’ lead to 24-20 after Bramer’s ensuing two-point run. In his third consecutive Final, Periard had 209 yards from scrimmage. In also his final high school game, this loss was the most heartbreaking.
“Obviously, the previous two hurt pretty bad, but I think this one was the most because it’s my last time ever playing football and we were so close to pulling this one off,” Periard said. “So this year’s definitely the worst, in my opinion.”
Any doubt of the game’s finish was put away with a 33-yard run from Bryja to slam the door. Bryja, also Lenawee Christian’s quarterback, threw for 229 yards and ran for 161 and two touchdowns, in addition to his interception return.
At the end of the day, the Norsemen didn’t falter, but it was tough to overcome the Cougars.
“Sometimes you have the cards falling your way, and sometimes you don’t,” Suttons Bay coach Garrick Opie said. “Today was one of those days where timing mixed with lack of execution or otherwise. Or the fact that Lenawee Christian is just a very good team, was just very tough.”
The 2022 Adrian Lenawee Christian senior class finished 24-0 in leading the program’s first two seasons of 8-player football.
“They’re going to leave as the all-time winningest group in school history. They will have the single-season win record. They will have a ton of stuff,” Wilharms said. “As a collective group, oh my goodness, what a wonderful, wonderful group.”
PHOTOS (Top) Lenawee Christian’s Ashur Bryja (15) breaks into the open on the way to a second-quarter touchdown. (Middle) Suttons Bay’s Hugh Periard (1) makes a cut as the Cougars’ Clay Ayers (2) attempts to wrap him up. (Photos by Cara Kamps. Click for more.)